Alas, closing in on a year later, I’ve found that I don’t use the Touch Bar much. I was forced to confront this unhappy fact when Adam suggested that I write an article about interesting uses of the Touch Bar. After some research, we agreed that there wasn’t enough there to warrant an article. Although there was a flurry of fascinating developer projects after launch, nothing significant ever shipped.

I’m not saying the Touch Bar is useless, because that isn’t true. At least in theory, it’s more capable and more flexible than a row of physical keys. And Touch ID is fantastic for logging into my MacBook Pro and authenticating 1Password. But if you were to ask me today if you should spend the $300–$400 extra on a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar, I would say no for two reasons.

It’s revealing that many reviews I’ve read of Apple’s latest generation of MacBook Pros point to Touch ID alone as the most significant feature of owning a Touch Bar-equipped model. Perhaps the Touch Bar is primarily designed to be something that allows consumers to access lesser-known application features and shortcuts. If that’s the case, though, why did it ship in the MacBook Pro first, to the chagrin of that product’s core user base?